102 AMERICAN GAME BIRD SHOOTING. 
for they pay little or no attention to him, all their inter- 
est being centered in the yelping creature below, even 
when some of their companions come crashing and 
tumbling to the ground. Their tameness, or stupidity, 
may be inferred from the fact that I have known an In- 
dian to kill fifteen brace in a day with his bow and ar- 
row, and another to bag twelve brace in an hour with an 
old Hudson Bay musket. To shoot them on their 
perches is really no sport, in the higher sense of the 
word, and were it not for the delicacy of their flesh, 
few persons would care to pursue them as a pastime. 
This species, like all its family, builds its nest on the 
ground, the materials of which it is made being dry 
twigs, leaves, and mosses. The eggs, which number from 
ten to eighteen, are a deep fawn color, sprinkled with 
various shades of brown. During the incubating period, 
the hens carefully avoid the males, and cling so tena- 
ciously to their nests that they sometimes permit them- 
selves to be made prisoners rather than desert them. 
The young are able to follow the mother as soon as they 
leave the nest, and are large enough to be shot about the 
middle of August or the first of September. They lie so 
well then that they will permit a dog to approach them 
to within a distance of six or seven feet, and when he 
points they generally crouch on the ground; yet, they 
sometimes attempt to escape by running and skulking. 
When flushed, they dart away in a straight line, and, 
though they fly rapidly, yet it is rather an easy matter to 
bag them, even in the dense forests. This species, it 
seems to me, would thrive in any country where coppices 
or forests are sufficiently numerous or extensive to afford 
it the shelter and privacy it requires; and it could evi- 
dently be made as domestic, if not more so, than the 
pheasant, as it has been known to breed and thrive 
in confinement. Everything connected with it would 
lead a person to infer that none of its family is better 
